


No Fearsome Tide

by weaselett



Category: Criminal Minds, Leverage, Numb3rs
Genre: Apocalypse, Crossover, Dark, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-18
Updated: 2011-05-18
Packaged: 2017-10-19 13:34:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/201414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weaselett/pseuds/weaselett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the family you’ve made is just as important as the one you were born into. When the world ends, Amita, Hardison and Garcia face a fight to keep their families together and to stay alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. After

**Author's Note:**

> Written for ApocaBigBang 2010/11.

_Time is a companion that goes with us on the journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment, because it will not come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived._ Jean Luc Picard

The world they live in now doesn’t even vaguely resemble the one that came before.

Steel and glass has been replaced with canvas and wood. Suits and fancy clothes have been discarded, through wear and tear, replaced by practical cotton shirts and denim trousers. Make-up and contact lenses are things of the past, and glasses are a rare luxury.

There are mornings when Penelope Garcia almost feels naked, without the make-up and the colourful clothes she used to wear every day, but most of the time it’s a relief. There’s less expectation now, all they care about is staying alive, keeping going and stealing what happiness they can, in whatever time they have left. They don’t judge each other, not on appearances, nor on their choice of company. It’s something close to freedom.

There are things she misses, like her flat and the kitchen she used to bake in. She can’t bake on an open fire, or in the strange clay built ovens that they’ve managed to create, so she’s had to find new ways to show her continued love. For the most part, she knits.

The winters are cold now, always, so she knits scarves, gloves, hats and jumpers. She has a stash of balls of wool and yarn, collected from numerous towns and cities that the others have travelled to for supplies. There’s more colour in her tent than there is almost anywhere else in the tent city they call home and she can’t help but feel that her tent has become a substitute for her old office in the BAU albeit with less knick knacks.

She knits with the same love she had always baked, more so when she’s knitting clothes for the babies. She’d never seen herself as a mother, not once she’d given herself over to her work with the FBI, but now, despite how much darker the world is, the swell of her belly makes her smile more often, and Rossi jokes that she smiles more often than the sun comes out.

No one has asked her who the father is, she doubts anyone will, and she doesn’t know herself. It’ll be a happy surprise when the sprog is born, and she’s sure there will be an exchange of chores between members of their community.

-

Alec Hardison has two kinds of morning. There are the ones when he wakes up under canvass, his face buried in sweet smelling blonde hair and a warm hand covering his hip, and then there are the mornings when he wakes cocooned in blankets, sunlight shining on his face. The latter type seems to be occurring less and less these days, as their little community becomes more and more self-sufficient.

He hates the sheep. Where exactly they’d managed to find sheep, he’s not quite sure, but they have a growing herd of small, grumpy, fluffy sheep that live alongside their cattle. Randomly, when he has a moment and misses hacking, he’ll hack the old farmer’s websites that still exist and read the various debates on whether sheep and cattle should be kept together. They’re more entertaining now, because their mass of livestock seems happy enough to cohabitate, despite the rather vehement arguments of certain farmers. It’s nothing like the stuff he used to read, like the eternal debates over who was the best Doctor or who was the best Star Trek captain, though Hardison had spent a week refusing to be anywhere near Spencer Reid after they’d started those debates around the camp fire one evening.

Hardison thinks he’s more in touch with reality now than he used to be, though it’s a much darker, less forgiving reality than the one that existed before.

He’s seen people die, actual real living people, he’s lost friends, he’s killed people himself. He isn’t the genius hacker with authority issues anymore, or at least he isn’t just the genius hacker with authority issues anymore.

He spends odd afternoons working with Amita and Garcia to build something resembling the MMORPHs they used to play, and they all enjoy it more for the opportunity to use their skills for something, to keep them fresh, even though it’s unlikely they’ll ever need them for anything. Maybe he’ll teach some of the kids how to hack; it would be a way to keep it alive, even if it’s a semi useless skill now.

There are good days, and there are bad days. Days when he had to wash blood off his hands and days that he spends watching kids charge around the tents, chasing renegade chickens. It’s not the life he would have chosen, but it’s the life he has, for however long he has it.

-

Amita Ramanujan’s mornings have a tendency to start earlier than she wants them to; such is the life of a parent with a young child. When she’d imagined her life as a child it hadn’t involved the end of the world, and she had never seen herself as a mother, raising a child in a small tent village with the help of people she’d never expected to meet. There’s a part of her that wonders at how she can be happy, when she can’t even begin to imagine what the future will hold, be it good or bad. The truth is, they have all learned to live in the moment. To stop worrying about the what ifs.

She spends her days out in the sun as much as she can, determined to enjoy it while she can, and to chase away the memories of constant darkness that still haunt her from time to time. Garcia joins her sometimes, Larry spends time with her from time to time, idly drawing equations in the mud at their feet. Summer is shorter now, barely lasting a full month, and she’s never been one to withstand the cold too well.

It’s funny to think, on days when she can see her breath, even inside a heated tent, that they’ve settled in a place closer to the equator than LA, close to beaches that used to be populated by scantily clad men and women for half of the year. Her children will grow up in a world entirely different from the one she knew. They’ll know more about survival than she had ever wanted to learn, and they’ll be raised among a group that includes some of the brightest minds of their generation.

Only Jack and Henry are old enough to remember what life was like before, and Jack understands the need to tell stories of those that they’ve lost. The others all listen in awed silence as they are told stories of brave FBI agents and smart insurance investigators who stole from the rich to help the poor. None of them are quite old enough to enjoy the stories about the profilers and the academics yet, but they will be one day.

All of the children appreciate the stories about the normal people though. The heroic mothers who won, even in death, the valiant fathers who died to keep their families safe and all of the rest, the sons, daughters, aunts, uncles and grandparents.

It doesn’t matter which of the adults is telling the stories, those are the stories that they ask for more often than not. She’s not sure if it’s because those are the stories that include all of the mundane little details about the world that was, or if it’s because they can relate better to them.

They have, after all, done their very best to keep the children sheltered from what happened. One day, when they’re old enough, they’ll be told what happened, to bring this world into being. But none of them are ready for that just yet.


	2. Amita

Los Angeles is burning.

They’re safe, the tiny group that had made it to the craftsman before the riots had started in earnest, but it’s been over a week, stuck within the same four walls. What’s worse is the people who are missing, the people who had promised to make it to the house before the riots had gotten bad, but who hadn’t ever appeared.

There are six of them; Alan, who had been at home, already in bed, when Amita, Charlie and Larry had managed to make it back from the university, arms full of everything they had managed to save on their way out. Colby had arrived an hour later with Robin, a backpack slung across one shoulder and a shotgun the other. They waited, for a long time, for Don, Nikki and the rest of their team to arrive, but in the end, after two days without any word, they’d surrendered to the fact that they wouldn’t be coming. It’s not that any of them believe they’re dead, they just know that they aren’t coming.

The riots never quite reach them, but they can still hear them, people screaming and yelling accompanied by the sound of gunshots. In the darkness of night, and ash, the only real light comes from the fires that haven’t stopped burning.

Charlie and Larry have been distracting themselves with the problems they consider to be their life’s work, holed up in the solarium with Colby sitting guard, though he doesn’t really need to. Alan cooks for them all, and gathers supplies for the trip they all know they’re going to have to make. They might have escaped the riots, might still be alive in the little bubble they’ve built for themselves, but the ash is still falling. One day, soon, they’re going to have to leave.

Amita and Robin sit together, neither of them even trying to pretend that the situation is anything other than what it is. It’s different for both of them, thinking of the parents they haven’t heard from, while Alan and Charlie take comfort in each other’s presence, and Colby and Larry were never close to their blood relatives anyway. The fact that neither of them have been outside of LA for any reason other than work for years speaks to that.

There’s a list, one that Amita makes in the back of one of her notebooks, of all of the people they know who aren’t with them. She isn’t too worried about Liz or David, they’re both on the East coast, far enough away that they’ve only barely been touched by the ash clouds. Don and Nikki she worries for, has to force herself not to think about the odds of them having found somewhere safe to hold up. Her parents are in India, for a long time now, and she hopes that they’re ok, that they’re beyond the reach of volcanoes and people’s fear. She doesn’t try looking for information on the internet, she’d rather not know and be able to tell herself that they’re ok, that the reason they haven’t contacted her is because they can’t. LA is a mess after all, it’s a miracle that she manages to get the limited internet access she does. She does her best not to examine that conclusion too hard; she knows it won’t hold up to analysis. That’s why she hasn’t spoken to Charlie in days.

He can never stop thinking, stop analysing, but he’s going to have to. Math can’t help them right now. Maybe, once they’re out of the city, it can help. Maybe it can even fix things a little, but now it’s nothing but a distraction.

“We have to go.” Robin’s voice is soft, and she doesn’t really move from her seat, but she’s tense.

Amita nods, glancing towards the door to the solarium, wondering if the boys have realised that yet or if she’s going to have to convince Colby to drag them to the car. “I know.”

Charlie and Larry don’t fight them in the end, but as she watches them in the rear-view mirror Amita knows why. At some point, when none of them were paying attention, they’d worked it out, given up trying to fix what was too broken and too out of their control. Larry doesn’t even argue when his food isn’t all white.

Amita’s driving her car, with Alan in the passenger seat and the boys in the back, following behind Colby’s car as he weaves his way around the scattered remains of LA’s traffic. They drive on the sidewalk as often as the road, the streets eerily empty as they edge around the centre, avoiding the freeway, which is clogged with all of the cars that hadn’t managed to make it out of the city.

It’s all Amita can do to look at the cars instead of the people in them.

Alan hums under his breath for most of the drive through the city, his gaze fixed on the horizon, while Larry and Charlie sleep, both them exhausted after days without. Amita tries to figure out what Alan’s humming, but she can’t focus on the sounds, can’t separate them from the ringing in her ears, so she gives up, turning her full attention to driving instead.  
She’ll ask him once they’re safe.

They stop when LA is nothing but a dusky glow on the horizon, taking refuge in the first motel they find. There’s no one behind the desk and the rooms are all empty. Amita spends a few minutes searching for someone before she gives in to Alan’s insistence that she rest, whoever it was that used to run this place is long gone, and she’s not thinking about the look on Colby’s face when he appeared from the house attached to the motel.

They claim the biggest room and its three beds. Larry and Colby take the floor, laying out the sleeping bags they’d both brought, though she knows Colby isn’t going to sleep, while she and Robin curl up under the covers of the double bed, leaving the two singles for Alan and Charlie.  
Amita ignores the look Charlie gives her, Robin needs the comfort of a warm body beside her more than Charlie does, and Amita’s the only one she’s likely to accept.

She isn’t surprised that it’s still dark when she wakes. She’s almost used to it, after so long, but it’s starting to confuse her internal clock. How do you count the days, when you can barely tell the difference between night and day?

Alan has taken Colby’s place by the window at some point, and he offers her a weak smile when he realises she’s awake. Neither of them speak, it would only wake Colby, and there’s nothing to say. Nothing’s changed. In a few hours they’ll pack themselves back into the cars and move on, until they can’t anymore.

Three days after leaving LA they have to abandon the cars, due to a combination of lack of petrol and clogged engines. The sky’s a little brighter now, though the ash is still heavy enough that they have to wear their masks still, the ash falling in a way eerily like snow.

Amita carries her bag, which holds her laptop, toiletries and two changes of clothes, along with her share of the supplies and remembers the days when she’d found it impossible to pack less than two bags. It’s funny how some things become easy when you have no other choice.

They move at a pace somewhere between Larry and Alan’s, with Colby trailing behind them all keeping watch over them still. Amita wonders, a few miles on, whether he’s doing more out of love or a sense of duty. She hasn’t asked him about Don, about what had been said or done to force Colby to leave without waiting for his team, but she knows that Don must have asked him, made him promise, to see Robin to safety.

They make slow progress, walking along deserted roads and through empty towns, not that she’s really sure it can be called progress. None of the places they walk through have names that she recognises, and she’s wary of searching for a road map. She doesn’t want to know where they are, not specifically, Colby’s compass tells them they’re heading east and that’s enough for her. It’s strange, she thinks remotely, how once she would have been asking for more data, but now she’s happier not knowing. Knowing won’t make anything better.

 

A week out from LA, Amita wakes to damp bedding. She thinks for a moment, trying to remember if she’d forgotten, but then she registers the empty space beside her. She sits up carefully, having to fight the urge to switch on a light and pull back the sheets. The smell, now that she’s more awake, is answer enough.

She wonders, for a moment, if she’s cold because all she can feel is relief that this time, they’re in a separate room than the men. It’s going to be hard enough, she thinks, for Robin with Amita knowing. She doesn’t want to think what it would be like if the men knew.

She swallows back sudden nausea, forcing herself to get out of the bed and move towards the bathroom. There’s a little blood on the floor, in a trail that ends at the bathroom door, and she takes a moment to close her eyes and breath, pushing her own feelings back for the moment before she reaches for the door handle.

Robin is sat in the shower, huddled in on herself, shaking. For the first time, Amita finds herself thinking of the other woman as small. She winces a little as she climbs into the shower cubicle, the cold a shock after the relative warmth of their hotel room. It’s the middle of summer, or at least, it would have been, and they’ve been sleeping in nothing but t-shirts the entire time.

Robin curls up in Amita’s arms, shivering, her cheeks dry, and they sit there, clinging to each other until Colby knocks on the door, starting them both awake from an uneasy slumber. It takes them less than ten minutes to wash off the blood and change into clean clothes. They leave the bed sheets, there are plenty of other beds in the hotel, complete with un-slept in sheets, for whatever unlucky soul next stumbles upon the place.

She watches Robin more carefully for a few days, trying her best to be subtle about it. She’s not sure what she would have done, if when Colby had woken them there’d been more blood on the tiles. She tries not to think about the fact that there would have been nothing any of them could have done.

All she can do is feel thankful for Robin’s presence in her bed, and by her side during the day. She feels helpless enough as it as.

 

It’s a shock when, almost two weeks after leaving LA, they run into another person. They’d all grown so used to one another’s company, to a world made up of only six people that it takes them all a moment to recognise that there’s a woman standing in the road ahead of them.

Charlie and Larry stop abruptly and Robin gasps, swaying a little in the middle of the road, covering her mask with one hand. Alan moves closer, resting a hand on Amita’s arm and offering a steadying arm to Robin, even as Colby motions for them all to stay back. It must be like being back in the army, Amita thinks absently, watching as Colby moves forward, doing his best to look unthreatening with a rifle slung across one shoulder.

The woman keeps her distance, clearly just as wary of them as they are of her. She’s unarmed, or at least Amita thinks she is. There’s no tell-tale bumps, nothing in the woman’s stance but fear. Her voice is quiet, almost non-existent, as she challenges Colby, but his doesn’t sound much different.

It’s then that she realizes that none of them have really spoken since this all began. They’d said a few words, when shuttered away in the house in Pasadena, and some since, but most of their communication has been with looks, touches and gestures. She’d never thought about it before, never minded because the silence was almost better than the alternative, but now she can’t help but be amazed. She’d always thought that talking was important.

It only takes a few moments before Colby turns and motions for them to join him, the tension across his shoulder easing just a little. The woman, Lisa, invites them to join her family in their home for the night, her voice tainted with a little bit of desperation. It’s been a while since they’ve seen anyone else.

They eat food from their own supplies, sharing with Lisa’s little family. They’ll pick up more when they reach the next town, the family haven’t been far from their little house yet and Amita isn’t sure they will, not for some time. It’s not as bad here, the threat not as immediate as it was in LA, the sky is still dark, and they’re still wearing their masks, but there’s some difference between night and day. And every so often, they can hear birds singing.

She shares a bed with Charlie for the first time in so long that she wakes confused in the middle of the night, missing the feeling of Robin pressed against her side. Robin is sleeping on a camp bed downstairs, with Larry and Colby on the floor and Alan on the sofa. Lisa’s husband had insisted that she and Charlie take their guest bed, as the married couple of the group. Amita had almost argued that she hadn’t felt like a married woman in a while, or at least, she hadn’t felt much of anything in a while.

When they move on, the next morning, Alan asks if the family wants to come with them, even as Robin’s gaze lingers on the little boy leaning against his mother’s side. Lisa’s husband is polite but firm when he tells them that they intend to sit it out, wishes them the best on their travels. It’s hard to walk away, more because of the darkened faces of the children than anything else, but it’s not their place to interfere. Not now.

Not when it might break up a family at the time that you needed your family the most.

 

Amita sits staring blankly at the object in her hand for over an hour before Colby appears in the doorway. She’d taken it from the last store they’d raided for supplies, all too aware of how uncomfortable her clothes were becoming.

“Amita?” His voice is carefully pitched so as not to startle her, but she still jumps, her nerves raw from so many days on the road. She almost wishes that they hadn’t left LA, that they’d just stayed, had just waited it out. It’s not rational, she knows, but wishes rarely were.

“I’m pregnant.” She whispered, hands starting to shake as it sinks in. She should be happy, they’d been trying for so long, but she can’t be. All she can do is wonder just what it is that she’s going to bringing their child into.

Colby stays where he is for a moment before stepping into the tiny room, lowering himself carefully onto the bench next to her. They’ve taken shelter for the night in a tiny abandoned spa/motel complex that smells of mould and rotten vegetables.

He reaches out to take her hand after a moment, squeezing gently, “We’ll get through.”

She starts at his choice of words, meeting his gaze for the first time in too long. She’d been expecting silence, or worse congratulations, she hadn’t expected that. Hadn’t expected the firm certainty behind those words.

They haven’t seen real daylight in almost two months, and yet somehow, Colby still hasn’t flagged, hasn’t hesitated. He’s this solid unshakeable presence for all of them, taking the hits for all of them and keeping them moving. He shouldn’t have to, but he does, and she loves him for it.

She’s leaning in to kiss him before she even realises that she really does love Colby, not like she loves Charlie, but it’s love all the same. He tenses, briefly before he gives in, and she deepens the kiss, suddenly desperate for him to touch her, to make her feel something that isn’t panic or dread.

Once she’s back in the room she’s sharing with Charlie, surprised by how guilty she doesn’t feel for what she’s just done, she digs out her laptop for the first time in days. She needs to reach out to people, to see if there’s anywhere left for them to run. If there’s anyone left for them to run to.

She doesn’t expect to be able to connect to the internet, doesn’t really expect that it’ll still exist, but the tiny icon in the corner of her screen tells her she has. She stares at it for a moment before she opens a chat window. There are exactly two people she knows, who she trusts, who are likely to still be on computers when the world just might be ending.

@kali @blueangel @tankgirl we made it out of LA

She leaves it at that, unable to think of a way that she could possibly expand on that without giving in to the panic she had been fighting back for so long. Now she just has to wait, and hope.

Garcia answers first, and Amita relaxes, just a little. She never really knew where Garcia might be, normally she’s safe in her office in Quantico, but that isn’t always the case, and it’s not like the other woman is really allowed to share all that much detail of her work, regardless of the fact that Amita has clearance.

Hardison doesn’t join the conversation for over an hour, and when he does he’s nothing like his normal upbeat self. It makes Amita wonder just how much they aren’t sharing, what they, like her, are holding back because they just can’t find the words.

It doesn’t matter in the end though, as after an hour talking to them both, they have something resembling a plan. Hardison knows the location of bunkers and safe houses that don’t even officially exist, something that would have bothered her before, but is actually reassuring now. Garcia provides the passwords and makes travels plans for each of their groups. She’d managed to track down Amita’s location, something Amita herself hadn’t even tried. She hadn’t wanted to know just how far they hadn’t gotten from LA.

Amita takes some time to gather herself once the other have logged off, each heading to tell their families about the plan. She draws out a copy of the map Garcia described, carefully noting down each and every instruction. She can’t afford to get this wrong, they can’t afford for this to be wrong.

If the vague comments that Garcia and Hardison had made, about attacks on their camps, there was only so long that they were going to be able to survive with just Colby to watch their backs.

Amita knew that she and Robin would be able to help him, but the others aren’t fighters, Charlie had proved that when he’d volunteered to go on the bureau training course, barely passing each section. The sooner that they can find the others, the greater the chance that they would survive, that her child would be born.

She finds them gathered together in Alan’s room, watching him create something resembling a meal for them all with two gas stoves and a small collection of tins he’d found when they’d arrived. She waits until they’ve all eaten, ignoring the looks that Alan and Colby cast in her direction, both of them able to read her far too well. She needs the time to prepare herself though, now that’s she’s actually in front of them; she knows they are going to have a lot of questions.

It takes her a little while to fill them in on the details, and they all have questions about where exactly she’s been getting her information. She hesitates, for just a moment, before she tells them the truth. She sees the flash of betrayal in Charlie’s eyes, before it fades, but she feels her own flash of anger in return. They both have things that they keep close to their chest, things that they do in plain sight but that the significance of passes the other by, but Charlie always takes it personally. The way he smiles at her through, as she finishes explaining, means more than she can say.

There may be things that have changed for the better, and if that is one of them, she doesn’t mind it.

It takes a little while for each of the others to consider what she’s said, Alan and Colby exchanging glances before Colby speaks, “You trust them?”

Amita nods, certain, she’s known them for a long time, long enough to get to know them and really trust them. Garcia works for the FBI, and is fiercely protective of her friends. Hardison, while he works on the wrong side of the law, and ‘works’ may be the wrong word for what he does, means well. He would never purposely hurt anyone. “I do.”

Colby smiles, and it’s a match for the smile on Charlie’s face, “OK, looks like we actually have somewhere to aim for.”

“We’re going to need a map,” Alan points out, “that compass of yours isn’t going to help us navigate our way to Arkansas.”

“I have a map,” Larry speaks up, pulling a rumpled map out of the depths of his backpack, “I found it in one of the convenience stores, I was waiting for the right time to bring it up.”

Robin smiles a little, which is more than she’s done in days, “We should have thought of it before now.”

None of them argues with her, though Larry shifts his weight a little. They all know why they hadn’t, and Amita can’t help but wonder if she would have ever thought about it if her hand hadn’t been forced. They’ve been relying on each other to stay alive these last few weeks, but they haven’t really been thinking ahead, they’ve been stuck in the one moment for so long.

She has to think of the future now though, has to plan ahead, because there is going to come a time when she wouldn’t be able to keep up the nomadic life style they’ve developed.

It takes them a few hours to plan out the route they’re going to take, and once it’s settled they make their way to their respective beds. They need to get as much rest as they can before they begin their trek again; they have targets to meet and a pace to set.

 

Amita hadn’t realised it had been night when they’d stopped. She’s used to tracking the passage of time by how often they’ve slept, rather than the meagre difference between night and day. Now though, with the sun shining down on them she finally lets herself remember what it was like, when LA had been sunny and warm, instead of dark.

She’s crying when Charlie wraps his arms around her, drawing her in against his chest while Colby settles on her other side, one hand warm on her leg. Part of her recognises that his other hand is resting atop of Charlie’s, but she’s too busy mourning the past to think about it.  
It takes a little while before any of them are willing to start moving again. They still haven’t encountered any resistance. The world they’ve been passing through is eerily empty of life, apart from the odd bird or animal.

Robin walks alongside Amita, holding her hand. They’d gotten along well enough before, but now they’ve drawn closer. They’re the only too women in their world now, though gender matters less and less each day, and they’re happy to give and take comfort from each other in the way that none of the men are.


	3. Garcia

Garcia stumbled toward her front door, drawing her robe around herself, muttering a few choice oaths under her breath as whoever was on the other side pounded on her door again.

“I’m coming.”

She flicked the locks, but left the chain in place as she opened the door, eyes widening in surprise as she identified her visitor, “Hotch?”

“Pack a bag and whatever you want to keep, we have to get out of town, now.”

Garcia stared at him blankly for a moment, her heart pounding fast, Hotch looked worried. Hotch looking worried was never a good thing. Hotch looking worried was his version of panic. “Wha….”

“Penelope,” he emphasised her name, snapping her out of her fugue, “we have to move in the next hour or we may not be able to.”

Garcia nodded quickly, closing the door so that she could unloop the chain before opening it again, letting Hotch into her apartment. “Give me ten minutes and I’ll be ready.” She hesitated, thinking of the others, “What about Kevin and the team?”

“Morgan said he’d get Kevin, JJ claimed Reid, and Rossi’s rounding up Prentiss.” Hotch listed off easily, having clearly expected her to ask, “Jessica and Jack are in my car waiting for us.”

Garcia nodded, swallowing hard before heading to her bedroom and getting changed with record speed before grabbing her go bag and shoving an extra few days of clothes into it. She grabbed another bag, for her equipment this time. She wished she knew what was happening, but at the same time, she knew Hotch well enough to recognise the urgency of the situation and that he wasn’t telling her for a reason. A good reason.

She packed her external hard drives, spare cables and bits and pieces she was likely to need if she had to fix anything, before heading back out into the main room of her apartment, stilling for a moment to watch as Hotch raided her kitchen cupboards. He looked up at her after a moment, a collection of tins in hand, “We need supplies, and we don’t have time to stop. Have you got everything?”

Garcia shook her head, “I just have to grab some stuff from out here and I’ll be ready…” she hesitated for a moment before nodding towards one of the lower cupboards, “there’s a box in there, it’s got a ton of medical stuff and long life supplies in it.”

Hotch raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment, dropping the last few tins into the box he’d grabbed from on top of her refrigerator before going to the cupboard she’d indicated. Garcia moved quickly, grabbing the last few things she needed, casting one regretful glance towards her projector before shouldering her bag and taking hold of her go bag. “I’m ready.”

Hotch nodding, stacking the two boxes before he picked them up, flinching slightly at the weight, “My car’s right in front of the building, there’s room in the back for all of this, and the front passenger seat’s free for you.”

Garcia nodded her understanding, leading the way out of her apartment and down the stairs to where his car was waiting; focusing on what she was doing, refusing to consider what it meant.

Jack startles awake at the first gunshot, just after Garcia and Hotch have swapped places. Hotch was the only one in the car who could use a gun, something that ordinarily wouldn’t have been a problem. Garcia’s hands tighten on the wheel as she tries not to think about how not normal this whole situation is.

Each time Hotch fires, through the open passenger window, Jack flinches, each shot echoes within the car, loud and terrifying. Until now Garcia has managed to avoid being around when the shooting starts, but now she doesn’t have that option. She can’t even look away or close her eyes, she just has to focus on the road in front of her and keep them moving.

Hotch squeezes her leg gently once they’re out of the town that they’d been passing through, and it settles her nerves, just a little, and she’s just a little too grateful that he hasn’t put down his gun.

There’s a network of little cracks across the windscreen, and one edge is stained red, but they’re all alive, if more than a little terrified. Garcia envies Jack a little, even as he cries in his aunt’s arms, Hotch offering a soothing commentary even though his attention is focused outside of the car.

“Hotch,” she had waited until Jack had fallen into an exhausted sleep to speak, not wanting to interrupt Hotch’s flow of reassurances, “where are we going?” She doesn’t ask what’s happening, she knows she should and she wants to, but she’s driving, which is in no means an activity that you want to be distracted from in the middle of night on an unfamiliar road.  
She’s only known when to turn because Hotch had told her when and where. It’s nice, knowing he has a destination in mind, but now she’s the one driving, it would be better if she knew as well.

“There’s a summer camp,” Jessica’s the one who speaks, startling Garcia a little, “Haley used to volunteer there, before Jack was born. It’s in the middle of nowhere, but there’s running water and a few cabins.”

“We should get there in an hour or so.” Hotch says, when Jessica finishes speaking, his gun laid in his lap now. “The others should be meeting us there.”

Garcia nods, before realising that they probably can’t see her in the faint light provided by the dashboard, “Ok, could you give me some basic directions, just in case.”

“Of course,” she can hear the apology in his voice, and she’s almost tempted to tell him that it doesn’t matter, that he has other, more important things on his mind, but she can’t find the energy. She just listens as he gives her directions, repeating each step mentally, as a distraction from just how tried she is. Not long now, and she can rest, though she’s not even sure if that’s true. Someone is going to have to be on watch, and it can’t always be Hotch, even though she knows him well to enough to know that he’s probably already preparing himself to do just that.

 

They reach the camp, driving up the long trail that leads to it past a brightly coloured sign, just as the sun starts to rise. The sight of JJ’s car already there waiting for them is a greater relief though, and Garcia has to force herself not to rush from the car and launch herself in JJ’s arms. Henry’s asleep in the backseat of the car still, sprawled across the lap of a sleeping Spencer, with Will sitting in the passenger watching over them both while JJ stands sentry next to the car, flashlight and gun in hand.

Garcia parks next to them on the other side from JJ, leaving just enough room between them to allow for doors to open, and Hotch climbs out of the car first, holding his own gun. He nods to JJ, who nods back whit an expression more grim than Garcia’s seen in a long time.

“You should both get some sleep,” Hotch murmurs, looking at Jessica then Garcia, “JJ and I will keep watch for now, until the others get here. Once everyone’s here we can figure out what to do next.”

Garcia hesitates, glancing sideways to watch as JJ spoke to Will, most likely an echo of what Hotch has just said, before she turns to meet Hotch’s gaze, “And you’ll tell us what’s happening?”

Jessica makes a soft noise from the back, backing Garcia up and Hotch sighs, somehow managing to look even wearier than he did before, then he nods. “Of course.”

 

It took another two hours for the others to arrive, and Morgan looks exhausted as Kevin parks the car at the end of the row. Where Rossi and Prentiss, via a rather inventive route, had managed to avoid any encounters during their drive, Morgan’s car looks like it’s been through a war zone. Hotch and JJ are quick to wash all traces of blood off all of the cars, doing what they can to shelter their boys from what’s happening.

Rossi and Prentiss check out the camp’s main cabin before they all move inside, Hotch, JJ, Morgan and Prentiss taking up positions at each of the windows while the others gathered around one of the tables that took up the centre of the open space inside the cabin. Henry and Jack both managed to sleep through being carried from the cars, and it’s clear that their respective guardians are relieved the boys won’t be awake to hear what’s about to be said.

It’s Spencer who volunteers to explain, he’s still eager, somehow, and that’s as much of a comfort to Garcia as the children’s ability to sleep. “Riots started in LA late last night, no one’s sure what caused them, but a lot of people died,” Garcia flinches a little, worried for Amita, but she manages to stay quiet, somehow. “Two volcanoes started to erupt yesterday, releasing more ashes into the atmosphere, and that news coupled with the news about the LA riots started a general panic….” Reid continues, but the more that he says, the more it starts to dawn on Garcia that he doesn’t actually know what’s happening, he’s just overcompensating with data. She swallows hard, turning to look at Hotch, but he isn’t looking at them, he’s staring out of the window.

“Spencer.” She interrupted him mid volcano factoid, knowing that her eyes are too wide and she sounds far too calm, but the truth is, she isn’t driving anymore, there are enough people keeping watch now, so she is going to panic. Just this once she is going to panic and then she’s going to pull herself together and focus on getting through. “Could you just, this once, admit that you don’t know something.”

Spencer stutters to a stop, looking mildly horrified and she can understand why. She never snaps at him, but this isn’t a situation they’ve been in before, so she doesn’t see why he’s so shocked. Under the circumstances, she is being amazingly controlled.

“Garcia…” Spencer starts again, his eyes still wide, but this time it’s Hotch who cuts him off.

“Reid.” Spencer falls silent, but the look he gives Hotch is just as hurt as the one he’d aimed at her moments before. Hotch shifts his weight, turning so that he can look at them while still keeping a line of sight out of the window. “After I heard about what had happened in LA I called JJ, Dave, and Morgan, I was worried that the panic would spread and I wanted to make sure that our families weren’t caught up in it.” He pauses, clearly considering his wording carefully before he continues, “I thought we might have to stay out here for a few days, I didn’t think we’d have to fight to get here.” There’s real regret in his voice, and Garcia feels for him.

On the other side of the room, Morgan shudders a little, but he doesn’t say anything, Kevin rubs his face with a shaking hand and continues to not look at anyone. Garcia wants to reach out to him, but she knows he doesn’t want it, that he can’t accept it just yet.

“So we don’t know what’s happening?” Jessica’s voice is soft, unsure, but she meets Hotch’s gaze steadily. She’s in a room full of people she barely knows, and if it were her, Garcia doesn’t think she’d be as calm.

Hotch sighs and shakes his head, “No.”

 

They make it a whole month before people start taking sanctuary in each other’s beds. No one comments when they see one of the others stumbling out of a tent that isn’t their own, they don’t even comment when the same person comes out of a different tent the next night.

It’s distinctly possible that it’s the end of the world; people are allowed to take comfort wherever they find it. Plus, it’s not like any of them had exactly met society’s expectations even before the end of world.

More often than not Garcia finds herself sleeping between Kevin and Morgan, sometimes Hotch takes Kevin’s place, but it isn’t all that often. JJ and Will adopt Reid, while Prentiss, Rossi and Jessica form a constant little group, and Jessica stops looking as scared as she did before.

They’re lucky, Garcia knows from what she’s been able to find on the internet. It’s amazing that it’s survived, though Reid is quick to point out that so many places have buried servers now, the fear of EMP’s having driven the run to ensure that everyone’s data would be safe should anything happen. It’s sad, all the effort that’s been made to protect data, when in the long run, the data is useless without any people left to need it.

Their campsite is well equipped, which isn’t really a surprise. It’d been just a few weeks sort of the summer when they’d fled the city, the camp would have been preparing for the influx of children. Henry and Jack have found enough to keep themselves entertained, though every so often they’ll spend a day apart. She hopes that, someday soon, their camp will grow, but at the moment they’re all being very careful to stay close to the camp, only ventured out to the lake or further down the river.

It’s sensible, staying all in the one place for a while, giving the rest of the world some time, but it’s frustrating at the same time. More so for the others than Garcia, Kevin or Jessica. The profilers are all used to being the ones trying to fix things, while Will spent most of his life in the police force. It’s worse for him as well, Garcia can tell, because he’s already lived through a disaster that had cost him his family. She hopes, for their sakes, that they can all stay safe.

She spends her time, whenever she can face it, and for however long she can face it, searching what remains of the internet for information on what’s happening. She searches for any clue as to what happened to lead to this, but she can’t find anything.

There are all of the news reports she remembers, and the published information from various sources, but there’s nothing there. She gets it, after all the lectures she’s had about how they respond to terrorist threats, that sometimes fear is the only thing that is required to cause a whole mass of trouble. She understands it, not entirely, but she’s gotten to know fear pretty well, and she knows that it overrides rational thought. Makes you do crazy things.

The thing is, what she saw, in the car, she can’t bring herself to believe that it was a product of fear and nothing else. There must be something.

The fact that the summer camp remains stubbornly empty of kids, and the distinct lack of traffic on the internet, and of TV or radio broadcasts speaks to something seriously bad happening. Bad enough to stop people in their tracks.

 

Two months into their enforced solitude Hotch makes a decision, one that her beautiful boy has been pushing for since week two, gathering a group to head out of the camp and see what’s happening in places that actually count as civilisation. Or at least, places that used to, she thinks, before she forces the thought back. She is not going to be negative, not now.

They take JJ’s car, Hotch, Morgan, Prentiss and Will, because it has the most gas left in it and it suffered the least damage. She forces herself to watch them go, standing stiffly at Reid’s side, Jack leaning against her looking far too accepting. He’s too little to be able to match his father’s stoic expression so well and it breaks her heart a little, because she knows there’s nothing she can do to fix that.

They’re still standing, staring at the empty track, long after the car’s tail lights have vanished from sight and if she’s honest, Garcia is tempted to stay there until they come back. Only doing that would suggest that she doesn’t think they’re coming back, when she truly believes that they will. They have to.

It’s Rossi who gets them all moving in the end, pointing out that they have things to be getting on with, most notably the long overdue washing.

They’ve been preserving power, all too aware of the fact that the camp runs on a mixture of battery and gas, both of which having a limited life, though Kevin and Reid have been working on a building a wind turbine to help with that. Which isn’t actually as easy as you would think, because they don’t have everything they need. They’d given Emily a list before the group had left, that included things a lot of things that Garcia had heard of, but had no idea what exactly they did. Computers she understands, building your own power generators, not so much.   
But basically, preserving power means not using the washing facilities. There’s a lake, they’ve managed to rig up a line to hang the wet stuff from and it’s a warm summer, so it’s not as much of a chore as it could be. The boys still moan, or at least Jack does. Henry doesn’t have the attention span quite yet to be trusted washing anything, he just tags along because one of his parents is normally present. And it means splashing around in water.

Such are the simple joys of a three year old.

Garcia envies him a little. For Henry this is all just a prolonged holiday. He doesn’t understand the tension that runs between the adults every so often, or why Jack gets frustrated with being stuck in the camp. It’s an adventure for him.

They manage to catch up with the slight backlog of washing. It rained for a few days, and cabin three seemed to be trying to create as much washing, in as short a period as possible. Thankfully, neither of the boys spotted any of the rather questionable stains, having discovered that Uncle Spencer’s socks were fairly effective fishing lures. They’ve covered the length of the line in damp cloth by the time they hear a car approaching the camp.

Garcia and Jessica herd Jack between them, while JJ gathers Henry into her arms and they do their best to fade into the bushes, keeping out of sight of the road, waiting for an all clear from one of the boys. It’s likely that it’s the others back from their trip, but they can’t be sure and it’s better to be safe than sorry. They haven’t seen a single person in the two months they’ve been living in the camp, but they still keep watch, as best they can.

Rossi comes for them, his face giving nothing away, and that only makes Garcia worry more. Profilers hiding things never signals anything good, that much she knows, and if the look on Jessica’s face is anything to go by, she’s learned the same. They walk slowly, the boys in the middle of the four of them, and Garcia feels the dread building. She wants, even honestly considers turning and heading back to the lake. Just five more minutes of enjoying the peace of the lake, not thinking about whatever bad thing has happened outside of their little bubble.

She sees Hotch first, standing near the edge of the car park, his eyes scanning the treeline. He straightens impossibly as he catches sight of Jack, the ghost of a smile on his lips. It makes Garcia’s chest ache. All her boss man ever seems to do is put up masks to protect other people, to make them feel better. She wonders what will happen when he can’t do that anymore.

Morgan moves into sight, a black eye starting to blossom, his shoulders tense, with Will just a few feet behind. Garcia quickens her pace, aware of JJ doing the same. There’s blood in Will’s hair and on the cuff of Hotch’s shirt and they haven’t seen Emily yet.

They reach the car park just in time to see Emily step out of the main cabin, her hair damp, wearing different clothes than she was wearing before. Garcia hurries past the boys, she needs to feel Emily, to make sure she’s ok.

They were gone for less than six hours, but Emily has come back with new ghosts in her eyes, and the boys are wearing theirs. Six hours isn’t long enough to have gotten very far, not long enough for them to have made it back home. Garcia pulls Emily into a hug, aware of JJ doing the same to Will behind, little Henry clinging to his parents’ legs.

There’s a long moment before Garcia pulls back, wiping at her cheeks, and letting Emily pull her towards the cabin, the footsteps of the others following behind loud in the silence. Reid and Kevin have grouped the benches together in a circle, the two of them sitting close together, paler than they’ve looked for a while. Garcia slows a little, glancing back over her shoulder; she hasn’t seen JJ’s car, she’s not sure she wants to, but, they must have.

There are times when curiosity really is a bad thing, instead of a good thing.

She forces herself to keep walking, crossing the room to settle against Kevin’s side, letting him slip an arm around her back as Morgan sat on the bench next to her, his shoulder pressed against hers. She notices how, once they’ve all settled, Hotch is the only one not touching anyone else. Ever the one of the outside.

It takes a moment before Morgan shifts a little, glancing towards Hotch before beginning to speak. It takes a little over half an hour for the four of them, each offering only a few short sentences in turn, as though they’re giving a profile, to tell them all what happened.

Garcia is aware of the tears running down her cheeks, and the solid muscle of Morgan’s arm on her one side, while Kevin shudders on her other side. JJ has curled onto Will, her feet nestled on Reid’s lap. Rossi has claimed a hand each of the women on either side of him. Jack has Henry huddled up against him, leaning back against his father’s legs.

She can’t believe they hadn’t thought to make sure that the boys wouldn’t hear that. They shouldn’t have heard it. Shouldn’t ever have been in the situation to hear something like that.

It’s then, watching Jack’s solemn little face and Henry’s puzzled expression, that she makes her choice. From what they’ve just heard, they can’t stay here much longer. They don’t have the supplies to last too much longer and it isn’t safe for them to travel too much outside of the camp to scavenge for supplies. They can’t guard the camp, there’s too many directions that people could approach from, and not enough cover.

She’s heard Morgan listing off all of the problems with their position, and she knows her team well enough to know that it’s true. It’s the reason Hotch paces more than he sleeps, that Emily is always sitting near a window.

They can’t stay here anymore.

 

She curls up on the bottom bunk of one of the beds in the cabin she, Morgan, and Kevin have claimed, her laptop across her knees. She connects to the internet, opens a chat window and waits.

There are other people out there, somewhere, she knows, she hopes. People she cares about almost as much as her team. People that she knows can help her find a way to keep her family safe.

It’s almost two hours before a message appears, bearing a familiar screen name. It’s joined a little while later by another. It takes them less than two hours to hash out a plan, one that will keep their families safe. None of them asks what the others have been through in the time since they last spoke. They have to focus on other things.


	4. Hardison

If there’s one things that Hardison misses most of all, it’s cars.

The walk from Boston to the little corner of Georgia they’ve staked their claim upon had taken a long time, longer than he had thought it would. He’d known, intellectually that it was a long way, or as Sophie had described it ‘a fair distance’, but knowing was a very different thing than actually knowing. Being able to say how long it took for a person to walk that many miles.

He is not, by any means, an outdoors person. He has always been happier hidden away in his room, his eyes fixed on a screen. He understands computers, and it’s that understanding that had formed the basis of his original friendship with Garcia and Amita, but more what’s more important is that for the most part, he could control computers.

Walking across country, surrounded by nature, he’s all too aware of how little control he has, especially in the face of what’s been happening. Before their little band of five had seemed perfect, not too many, not too few, but now he wishes that there were more of them, that there had been more of them. He almost wishes that Sterling was with them, but then this really would be hell.

It’s a relief, meeting up with Amita and her little band in Arkansas, and then a few short days later, meeting up with the people Garcia has sent to meet them and guide them to their new home. He struggles, as they plod on through unfamiliar countryside, to think of the place they’re headed as home. It’s an army base, or at least, the army were the ones who had built it. He can remember the plans, and the listing of all of things that would be waiting for them, and there’s nothing in it that makes him think of home.

Home is the flat above the bar back in Boston, even if it’s not where they sleep. He’d just managed to work a little dent into the sofa in front of the screens, only just managed to get used to the slightly uncomfortable stools at the breakfast bar. There were so many little things about that flat that they’d worked on. The little stashes in the walls and fake books, the wiring that he’d set up so that he could control most of the building more securely. The painting.

He’s never felt quite so broken up over having to leave a place behind. Though he knows it’s not really about leaving the place. It’s about the other thing. The one they don’t talk about.

 

As they travel he gravitates towards Amita, and he’s not the only one. She has a small group of caretakers, intent on making sure that she stays on her feet, that she eats and drinks enough. Every so often, she’ll shoo them away, either out of annoyance or embarrassment, but none of them care. She’s become a focal point for them, a source of emotion that isn’t fear or weariness.

His team keeps their distance from the others, though Parker still toys with them, stealing little things from one person and swapping them for something from another. He can understand why they’re doing it. They’re surrounded by FBI agents and geeks, people that they’d never really have spent any time around under other circumstances, unless there was a con involved. The only problem is, these are the people they are going to spend the immediate future with, stuck within the bounds of an ex-army facility.

He wonders if maybe they would be better off alone, in their little group, though he knows they wouldn’t be. It’s the end of the world, and they need as many hands, as many people on their side, as they can get to hope to even keep going, let alone make it to the other side. If there was an other side.

They needed to group together, get past their differences, and possibly do any number of other things that motivational posters where always talking about. Mostly he only remembers ‘keep calm and carry on’ and ‘don’t blink’. Though it’s a bit late on the blinking part.

He pushes the others, trying his best to pick the right moments to nudge them towards the people they’re travelling with, though he knows it’s not something he’s good at. Sophie smiles at him across the camp fire when as he tries to convince Parker to make friends with Prentiss, Emily, the only girl out of the group Garcia has sent to fetch them. It doesn’t really work though, mainly because Parker is still Parker, and Prentiss is a profiler.

Parker might be a bit crazy, but she’s generally harmless. Enough.

Provided there isn’t any cutlery.

And provided she doesn’t get hold of a taser.

He figures he’s best leaving it at that with Parker. She’ll work her way into their hearts, like she did his, in time. He hopes. Larry at least seems to like her, though Hardison doesn’t really get why. He had asked, but he hadn’t really understood the answer. Hadn’t expected to, considering Larry was forever referring to Amita’s bump as a wormhole.

He wasn’t even going to try pushing Eliot. Pushing Eliot never ended well for him. So he just let the glaring matches and shows of macho power continue, doing his best to ignore the idle commentary Sophie had taken to providing. He was fairly sure that if she had her way, she’d have the vast majority of the men wrapped around her fingers in no time.

 

In hindsight, Hardison wonders if in the week they’d been travelling they had become complacent, because they hadn’t met anyone on the route. That said, he isn’t surprised because Garcia’s lot had come the same way before.

They’re just a few short days from the camp when a mob ambushes them. It happens so quickly, and their attackers are wearing clothes that hide so much of them, that Hardison isn’t entirely sure what goes down. He knows that Alan, Amita’s father in law, goes down hard and there’s enough blood that he knows the man won’t be getting up again. Eliot and Morgan, backed by Colby and Prentiss, take up positions around them, taking the brunt of the rest of the attack.

It’s almost over as soon as it’s started, the survivors of the group that attacked them vanishing back to wherever they’d come from in the first place. Hardison’s too focused on Amita and Parker to really notice, and if he’s honest, he’s more aware of the warm hand on the small of his back, holding him in place.

They regroup quickly, Colby kneeling down to check on Alan, despite the look that Hotchner gives him. There’s too much blood and Alan isn’t moving. Hardison moves closer to Amita, helping her pull Charlie away, they don’t have long, they have to keep moving, put as much distance between themselves and their attackers as they can.

They don’t have time to grieve, or even consider doing anything but covering Alan as best they can. Hardison knows only too well how much this whole situation sucks. He’s been here, and it hurts like anything, but there’s not a thing he can say to make it better for any of them.

Time isn’t something they really have anymore.

 

After losing Alan, they keep moving, stopping only to rest for an hour or so whenever they really have to. Hardison does his best to keep Amita moving, helping her keep pace with them, with Hotchner’s help. It’s not entirely unexpected, the man has been doing his best to make sure that they are all ok the whole time, and like Hardison, he has the least blood on him. They’re the only two who can really offer Amita aid.

Traveling like that, they cover the distance in half the time they’d expected, the foreboding, if ancient, military sign appears on the horizon just as Hardison starts to wonder just how many of them are going to make it. There’s only so much a person can take before they need to take a break, and even with the thirteen of them, they can’t really rest safely. They don’t know the ground, it’s unfamiliar and there’s too many places that could be secret hiding places for the enemy.

Not that they’re the enemy, they’re just, not with them.

He sees Garcia before he sees anyone else, her faded red hair still noticeable enough to make her stand out from the two blond women and the three men standing with her. He spots two kids as well, off to one side, watching them from under the shade of the tents.

It’s the sight of Garcia that gets to him though, her smile, something he doesn’t think he’s seen anyone do in years, is brighter than anything else. He falters a little, losing his grip on Amita, only to start as she shifts away. He turns, swaying a little, to watch as Hotch lifts Amita gently into his arms, offering Hardison a faint smile and a shrug. They’ve not got much further to go, but it’s too far for Amita.

It’s been a hard journey for them all.

 

There were no zombies in the beginning, just desperate people armed with guns, looking for someone to blame, or someone to punish for what was happening.

Eventually though, as time goes on, more of the people they’re shooting resemble the zombies Hardison remembers from films. He knows, all too well, that there were a lot of places in the US that had been hiding secrets, both of the deadly kind and not, and with the world in the state it is, those secrets have been seeping into the world.

The first time someone breaks down after shooting someone, it’s Prentiss, one of Garcia’s team. It’s a surprise to him, but the grim looks on the other profilers’ faces tell another story. She’d shot a kid, which was enough to mess with anyone’s head, but this kid hadn’t been one of the zombies, hadn’t even really been evil as such. What he had been was armed with a rifle and the need to take his pain out on others. It sucked that Prentiss had had to shoot, but the kid had already winged Rossi.

Hardison never thought that he would get used to killing people, but somehow he has, and he knows that since Amita had finally given birth, he was finding it even easier. Given the choice between whoever it was that was threatening his family, and his family, he was always going to choose his family. It might make him cold, but he just can’t bring himself to care anymore.

Maybe one day, when their lives aren’t hanging in the balance anymore, he’ll find the time to deal with all of this, but for now he’s more than happy to just not think about it.

There’s a list, he doesn’t know who started it, but they all keep it now so it doesn’t really matter. It’s a list of the dead. He knows some of the names on it, he’d written Nate’s on it himself, knowing that neither Eliot nor Sophie would ever manage to, but there are far more that he doesn’t. Each and every one is the name of someone that a member of the camp had known, Before. It’s a way of remembering, of making sure that one day, when they can afford to, they’ll take the time to make sure that those names don’t die along with the people they’d belonged to.

Hardison wonders who will be the one to put his name on the list, when the time comes. It’s not that he _wants_ to die, it’s more that he’s aware that it’s a distinct likelihood that he won’t live to see forty.

 

Their camp grows, slowly but surely, as they bring the odd person back with them, along with much needed supplies. They start to work on making themselves self-sufficient.

Hardison helps the scarily smart Doctor Reid build a generator, using parts of old bicycles and whatever else they can gather from amongst the wreckage of the world they used to belong to. There’s no petrol for their cars, which sit, slowly rusting away in a corner of the camp, and gas is almost impossible to get hold of outside of the bunker that their camp sits on top of.

It’s take a few months of trial and error before they manage to figure out a way to heat their tents, without risking burning them down or flooding them, and it’s wins Hardison the first smile from Eliot in months. It’s slow, the way they’re all recovering from what they’ve lost, but they are finally finding their feet, finding new ways to deal with almost constant risk of death.

There are a lot of ways to die.

There’s infection, because drugs have shelf lives, and there’s a whole lot of trial and error involved in trying to create effective alternatives. It makes paper cuts a whole lot scarier than they ever were before.

There’s by human hands. Which happens less than infection, though they’ve been lucky on both counts. There haven’t even been many suicides. Less than Reid had been expecting. Not that Hardison had wanted to know that, but Reid doesn’t have a filter anymore. He’ll go off on tangents while they’re working on whatever project they’ve been tasked with that day, in between the trips that they take out for supplies.

There’s animals, which includes the ones they’ve managed to collect to add to their motley group. Cows are just as dangerous as bears. In fact, considering that none of them have been injured by bears, they’re more dangerous than bears.

And then there’s nature. The ash cloud’s still there. It’s getting smaller, but it’s still there as are its after effects. Hardison can’t remember a colder winter.

 

Hardison had expected Parker to be jealous, of Garcia and Amita, and later of Hotch, because she always had been before, but she isn’t. It’s like they’ve finally gotten to the point that they’ve actually defined their relationship. She doesn’t do sex; she’ll have sex, if it’s what he wants, but Parker herself isn’t interested in it. She doesn’t get anything from it.

She’s happy crawling into bed to lie between him and Hotch, curling up between them and making a happy little noise that always makes Hotch smile. Hardison is just relieved that she doesn’t mind, he had had images of her stabbing Hotch with kitchen utensils for a long time, and it’s nice not to have to sneak around.

Eliot on the other hand, is always pointing out that it’s impossible to sneak around now, considering they live in a community of just under thirty people, living in heavy canvas tents that in no way block sound. Plus most of the camp beds creak. Parker had always known, she’d just stopped letting it bother her. The fact, Eliot had argued during the most disturbing conversation of Hardison’s life, was that with almost everyone in the camp sharing a bed with at least one other person, sometimes on rotation, Parker had come to see it as normal. As much as Parker had a normal.

Hardison still slips into Amita’s tent on occasion, sliding into her bed on the other side of the sleeping baby, and Garcia still joins them. It’s no more sexual now than it ever has been, Garcia has Kevin and Morgan for that, and Amita has Charlie and Colby, it’s a simple comfort, reminding one another that they’re still there. Making sure they don’t wake up alone when their partners are out on raids.


	5. Before

There’s a divide, in all of their minds, between the present, and Before.

Before, they all lived in buildings, with windows and kitchens and bathrooms. Before, money had been a necessity. Before, there had been lines, rules that people followed because they were somehow important, even though they really weren’t.

Every so often, they’ll talk about Before. Once, they talked about the immediate Before. When they’d been wary but disbelieving, so secure in the world that was. They each remember it a little differently.

Garcia remembers how it was for the BAU, how distant the danger had been for them, even though it really hadn’t been.

 _Penelope Garcia chewed nervously on the end of her pen, staring at the television screen mounted on the wall behind her computer screens. She’d avoided the main bullpen, knowing from experience that if they had the news on Spencer would be in full statistics mode.  
There were times when Spencer’s knowledge could be useful, even reassuring, but this wasn’t one of them. Garcia was willing to admit that she had probably watched one too many apocalyptic dramas over the years, a good few of which had involved volcanoes causing the end of the world, but over the past year she had started to wonder if maybe, they weren’t as unrealistic as Spencer liked to say they were.  
Spencer could, after all, list the effects of every recorded major volcanic eruption, many of which hadn’t exactly uplifting. So he couldn’t exactly argue that volcanoes weren’t dangerous, that they didn’t kill people and destroy whole towns.  
Garcia jumped as one of her computers beeped, new text flashing up on the screen. Garcia smiled, abandoning the pen to free up her hands to type.  
@blueangel rewatching #firesofpompeii and taking bets on when ppl start turning to stone and seeing the future in RL  
@tankgirl @blueangel if that happens RTD could sue the world  
@blueangel @tankgirl good luck to him in ‘this economic climate’ – how goes the gmen?  
@tankgirl @blueangel I could not possibly tell you that, being who you are  
@blueangel @tankgirl ;p my day job is miles from your day job, no way are your babies interested in me  
Garcia grinned, feeling her dark feeling lift, just a little. She’d known Alec Hardison for years, though she was careful to make sure no one knew that. The hacker’s code and all that. He was a good friend, and she was happy to stay ignorant of just what he got up to, he’d always played in a different area than her, which was one of the reasons only the white collar division was interested in getting a hold of him. He was however, still in her league, right up the top of the list, but the FBI, CIA and NSA had just never managed to get their hands on him.  
She tapped her fingers on her desk idly, trying to decide how to answer, or whether to just deflect back to the original subject. She didn’t have much other work to do; it had been a relatively easy week for the BAU, taken up by desk consultations and paper work catch up, so she could afford to spend some time tweeting at her peeps.  
@tankgirl @blueangel which epi are you watching next?  
@blueangel @tankgirl time, and coworkers, seem to be conspiring to interrupt my DW time ;(  
@tankgirl @blueangel awww poor baby, such a shame  
@blueangel @tankgirl working for a living is such hard work ;)  
Garcia laughed, trying to imagine Hardison working in an office and failing. He’d tried once, she knew, working tech support under an alias, but he had barely survived three hours before throwing in the towel. Not that she could blame him, if she’d had to spend time reminding people to plug things in, or turn them on, she would probably have the same reaction.  
It was bad enough when one of the team invaded her space or dared to bring liquids within range of her system. Even her beloved Kevin Lynch was responsible for a small number of insults to her system. It was one of the many reasons why her friendship with Hardison, and with Amita, was important. She had to have an outlet for her computer related woes.  
She cast one last glance towards the television, watching as the image of the latest in a long list of volcanic eruptions took up the screen, dark ash spilling into the sky, before turning it off. She saw worse things, committed by people, during the course of her work; she really didn’t need to listen to people whine about nature._

 _“I miss the plane.” Rossi commented flatly, as he eyed the rather dingy train carriage that they had been forced to travel in for their new case, and Garcia couldn’t help but agree. Yes, to her the plane was a grand thing, but there was also a practical side to it, as proven by the old man who had been watching her cleavage for ten minutes. On the plane, they could work the case, without interruptions. In a train carriage filled with random strangers, they really couldn’t.  
Cleavage man shifted uncomfortably and looked away, drawing Garcia’s attention to Hotch, who had taken the seat beside her, across the table from cleavage man, and who was aiming his most intimidating glare at cleavage man. She mentally added ‘gallant’ to the words assigned to describe Hotch, fighting the urge to blush. One of these days he’d stop flustering her.  
“We caught the guy in time.” Morgan commented in return to Rossi, from his seat across the aisle, next to a sleeping Spencer, “that’s all that really matters.”  
Rossi grunted a vague affirmative, drawing an amused look from Emily. They were across the aisle from cleavage man, books scattered across the table between them and JJ, who had fallen asleep sprawled across two seats. It had been a long week, made even longer by the lack of the plane and the constant news reports on the latest eruptions. Apparently the volcano was done, for now, but the news readers were all too willing to provide lists of volcanoes in the same area that hadn’t erupted in some time. Bad news was good for the news business, even if it really sucked for everyone else.  
“We’ll be back in DC in less than an hour.” Hotch pointed out, finally looking away from cleavage man to look his team over, “Hopefully,” he didn’t sound especially hopeful though, but that was just Hotch, Garcia reasoned, “we’ll be able to use the jet again soon.”  
Rossi didn’t look especially convinced either, and Spencer muttered something about increasing volcanic activity over the past year being significant in his sleep. There were times that that boy really worried her._

Amita can remember how she and Charlie had been busy settling back into life in America, trying their best to make sure that Alan still felt welcome. It had been strange, after their time away, to come back to the family they’d left behind.

And she can remember what it was like, at the beginning of the end. How unaware they were of what was to come. How unaware they were that any day could be the last time they saw one another.

 _Don still comes over for dinner, that’s something that hasn’t changed in the time that they’ve been away, only now he brings Robin with him, whenever she’s not too busy with a case. It’s nice, but there are days when Amita longs for dinner alone with her husband, and the kitchen they’d had in their residence in Oxford.  
She misses weekends in bed, with no one else in the house other than Charlie. Most of the time, Alan stays in his apartment, but sometimes Amita will go to the window, dressed only in her bra, and she’ll see him in the garden and blush, hurrying back to bed, or to dress. It’s awkward in a way it wasn’t before and she feels bad. She can hear her mother scolding her, reminding her that she’d pushed Charlie to convince Alan to stay, and it’s tradition to live with your parents.  
It’s a few weeks before Don comes to them with a case, and she avoids working on it, leaving it to Larry and Charlie. She has work that she wants to do, that she’d finally been able to focus on while in England, but as she watches Charlie during the few hours she spends with him as he works, she remembers why she could never resist. There’s something satisfying about using maths to help people, even though it scares her still. She can remember what it was like, to have a man threatened to kill her, to be taken from those she loved.  
It’s strange when she finally agrees to help, walking back into the FBI office and not seeing David or Liz. She smiles when she spots Colby and Nikki in the break room, throwing tea bags at each other, some things at least haven’t changed.  
She sits with her legs crossed on the bed the night after they catch a serial killer before he could kill his fifth victim. She’d half expected to finally meet the people that Garcia talks to her about so often, but Don had been determined that with her and Charlie helping they would catch the killer before the BAU could even get on their plane.  
@kali @tankgirl maths wins the day once more  
@tankgirl @kali my baby boy told me so  
@blueangel @kali @tankgirl hell yes, science, it works ;)  
@kali @blueangel you back in the country?  
@blueangel @kali I would not know what you mean by that – did I leave?  
@tankgirl @kali @blueangel behave kids  
@blueangel @tankgirl yes mom  
Some things really never changed. _

_Volcanoes were bigger news than violent crime in LA, or at least it seemed that way these days. She could still remember all of the complaints from when volcanoes in Iceland grounded aircraft, and now American ones were doing the same. Which actually made it much worse, according to the press at least.  
Larry, at least, was fascinated. He seemed to be spending more of his time reading histories of volcanic eruptions rather than working on any of his theories. Charlie wasn’t as taken with it, banishing their friend from his office whenever he started to talk about volcanoes, preferring to focus on the work at hand. They had killer jewel thieves to catch.  
Amita settled onto the sofa beside Alan as the evening news started, having decided to take a break from the equations that were starting to blur in front of her. She looked up as Don walked through the front door frowning as she caught sight of his hair, speckled with dust as it was.  
Only it wasn’t dust.  
“The ash cloud’s getting bigger.” Don ran a hand through his hair roughly, spreading the ash across his head instead of dislodging it.  
Alan motioned towards the TV, “It’s no surprise, this is the tenth day of eruptions and they mentioned something about another one of the volcanoes in the range starting to look more active.”  
“They’ve grounded everything, and we’re being given these,” Don pulled a collection of face masks out of his back pocket, tossing them to his father.  
“I’ve got some better than this in a box somewhere,” Alan eyed the masks critically before placing them on the table, “there’s left overs in the fridge for you, if you want them.”  
Don grinned, “When have I ever said no. I’ll grab a plate then go see Charlie.” He nodded to Amita before heading into the kitchen and she watched him go, frowning.  
“How bad do you think it’s going to get?” she picked up the masks, turning them over in her hands.  
Alan shrugged, “I wouldn’t know, but it should quiet down soon enough, last time it was a month or so”  
Amita nodded, glancing back towards the screen and the images they were showing. It didn’t look all that different from the images she remembers being shown at school. Her parents had been fascinated, India didn’t have any volcanoes. They worried about other things._

 

Hardison doesn’t really remember anything specific. They’d been in the middle of something, something that had been surprisingly uncomplicated. He’d been disappointed at the time, having grown used to Nate’s increasingly outlandish plans and ambitions. It’s nice to know that, for a time before the bad stuff really started, the stuff you couldn’t con, it hadn’t been worried about getting killed.

He misses it though, the way they used to be, and the cons they used to run. It’s something he knows they’ll never have again, something he’d never thought he’d lose, because he’d planned to never get caught. Problem was, getting caught wasn’t the only way that you could lose.

 _They’re eating in some dive in a tiny rural town again. It’s getting to be a habit, since they stole a country. Really, there’s not anything they could have done that would have topped that. You steal a country and you can never really go back to the same old small cons to help one or two people.  
Ok, no that was a lie, stealing countries wasn’t exactly good for making money. Unless you were Parker, or you stole a country in a different way. They hadn’t exactly been in it for the money, but that wasn’t the point. They’d stolen a country, which was a big thing and one hell of a high.  
He grinned a little, even as he idly hacked into a few random networks, ignoring the looks that Eliot kept throwing him. He was just bitter that he hadn’t had the opportunity to hit anybody for a while.  
Hitting people always made Eliot happy. Or beating evil ex-bosses that he hadn’t mentioned, who had made him do things he would tell them if they asked, but didn’t want to.  
Eliot was actually more complicated than he seemed on the surface. Even if a pretty bit of tail would be enough to distract him more often than not. Not that Hardison blamed him, man had needs.  
Hardison frowned, muttering a curse as he eyed the progress of his download. Why did they always get cases in out of the way, failing internet places when there was a new episode of Doctor Who. Sometimes he wondered if Nate planned it that way, only Nate didn’t seem to know anything about Doctor Who, judging by the fact that he’d never called him on his slight obsession. Ok, he had the one time he’d Jonesed their IDs, but he would happily hold up a hand and admit that it hadn’t been subtle. He’d just wanted to see if it would work. It hadn’t.  
There had been an angry message in a certain private work email._

 _They finished the job, winning back their clients’ money in style, if Hardison did say it himself, just in time to find out that all flights had been cancelled, due to volcanic ash. To say that they were all less than impressed was an understatement, but it wasn’t like Hardison could hack a volcano.  
Despite what Parker seemed to think.  
He might have managed to hack history, kind of, but hacking mother nature was something that only happened in bad sci-fi. Or good sci-fi where there was sufficient work in place to support the possibility. Last Hardison had checked, the NSA was still working on patching that hole, the Earth remained un-hackable.  
It wasn’t hard to rent two cars, Eliot refusing to spend that many hours in a car with Hardison, and Sophie unwilling to spend that much time with Nate, for reasons that the pair thought the others were unaware of, and get on the road. It was a nice enough drive, or at least, Hardison was sure that if you liked scenery and the outdoors, it was a nice drive back. He spent the time catching up on his viewing, and keeping up with the news. He might have also been checking on safe houses and such, he’d seen Deep Impact, and he knew volcanoes weren’t comets, but similar rules applied when it came to survival. He’d have to play with Lucille mark four a bit, or else ash would just clog her engine right up.  
“What do you know about volcanoes?” Sophie asked him, a few hours into the drive, taking advantage of a sleeping Parker, who had been adamant that volcanoes made hot snow and obsessed with listening to the radio news coverage of the eruptions. The radio was now playing the Carpenters, Sophie’s choice, because she was driving, and Hardison was not going to argue with her over music.  
“A bit, not a whole lot. Mostly what I learned in science.”  
“Oh.” Sophie smiled faintly, shifting a little in her seat.  
Hardison frowned, leaning forward, “You worried Soph?”  
She shrugged, “It’s not something you really think about is it, until it happens? And Parker’s fascination, and our being stuck with it, made me think about it. That’s all.”  
“Yeah, it’s kinda hard to tune it out.” Hardison smiled fondly at the snoring Parker, “It’s a shame we can’t really con nature.”  
Sophie laughed, shaking her head, “Stealing a country has really gone to your head hasn’t it? I think we’re best leaving nature to herself. She’s too unpredictable, and I don’t think even Nate would be able to think us out of the kind of trouble that would case.”_

 

What they have now is different from what they had before, but sometimes, in the safety of Amita’s tent, each of them will admit that maybe, just maybe, they’re happier now than they were Before.

They sit sometimes, Hardison in the middle, Garcia curled up against his right side, Amita against his left, closest to the cot, an talk about what they remember, about those last days and the things they’ve lost.

They’ve all lost things, and people, but they’ve gained as well, and they’re closer to those that they have left.

There’s little doubt in Amita’s mind that Colby would have never have shared a bed with her and Charlie, in that other world, he would have let society’s expectation get in the way. She’s not sure if she would have been as happy without him. There’s a balance now, between the two men in her bed, that there wasn’t when there was just one.

Garcia thinks her team are all happier now, Hotch actually smiles, something that has more to do with Hardison, Parker and Jack than any lessening of his burden, and Morgan trusts them all a little more easily. Rossi is still writing books, on scattered bits of paper that Jessica burns every so often, and Emily’s as good a mother as they thought she’d be. They’re all happy in their little groups, and as part of the bigger family they have now. No more over analysing things.

It’s true that there’s a hole, where the head of Hardison’s little family used to be, but it doesn’t ache like it used to. Hardison thinks that maybe Nate would be proud of the way they’ve stayed together. The way they’ve held each other up through the end of the world as they knew it. He also thinks Nate would be shocked if he knew that two of them have taken up with, fallen for, an FBI agent, who still tries to be one, despite everything. Or maybe he wouldn’t be, after all, the world they have now isn’t the one they had Before.

It’s a whole new world.


End file.
